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Talk:Asahi Bussan
Recent edits I'm very disturbed by a recent set of edits to this page. Not quite knowing where to start, I'll start at the top. Putting aside the relatively trivial matter of capitalization, we don't say "Latin letters", we say "Roman letters" (or, where appropriate, "romanized form", "English-language contexts", etc.). The standard pronunciation of 合資会社 is gōshi-gaisha, or this is what's implied by the sixth and latest edition of Kōji-en, the best known of the larger Japanese dictionaries. This does not mean that gōshi-kaisha is or was impossible, but anyone familiar with English language publicity for Japanese companies will know that romanization has always been idiosyncratic; in most contexts, 会社 is indeed kaisha, and it's not at all unlikely that each word here was transliterated separately and with no regard for context. by Hoary 21:29, 18 January 2009 (EST) continues :The ORIGINAL HISTORIC source published by ASAHI BUSSAN says KAISHA ! (added at 10:42, 19 January 2009 by U. kulick) Japanese addresses are simply and sensibly ordered from most general to most specific, such that Obama's future address would be something like "DC, Washington, Pennyslvania Avenue, 1200" (this is from possibly faulty memory). There are various methods of rendering Japanese order in English contexts; for many Japanese addresses, certainly including this one, the ingredients have a pretty unambiguous order. Whichever order you choose, there is absolutely no reason whatever to present the same address in a different order. (However, it might be a good idea to have a single page explaining Japanese addresses.) Camerapedia has largely followed the Japanese order rather than any rearrangement, because there is no agreement on precisely how to do the latter, and the former raises few questions. To say No.1, 8 chome Nishiginza, Kyobashi, Tokyo, Japan (some experts would write: Kyōbashi-ku Nishi Ginza 8–1) is ludicrous. by Hoary 21:29, 18 January 2009 (EST) continues :To worry us completely I've found another variant: Ginza Nishi, 8-chome, Kyōbashi, Tokyo. Thus would mean "West Ginza" then Kyōbashi would be the street name. But that's worrying since Kyōbashi itself is a district name like Ginza. Was it the "West Ginza Street" in Kyōbashi? (added at 10:42, 19 January 2009 by U. kulick) This article was largely written by Rebollo_fr. Over the years, he has shown himself to be a careful and scrupulous editor (as well as an immensely energetic one). He's able to read Japanese and conversant with the relevant conventions of Japanese, e.g. addresses. This is not to say that he's infallible: he does make occasional mistakes and I have found them. (He's found rather more of mine.) He's also extremely well informed on Japanese cameras from the 20s to the 50s (and pretty knowledgable about others too). And he's also a patient and kindly fellow, open to suggestions, questions, and even complaints on talk pages. I would urge anyone to correct "his" articles on this kind of subject with great care, not because he is a prolific author (or because he carries a little-used administrator cluebat), but because he probably knows what he's talking about. by Hoary 21:29, 18 January 2009 (EST) continues :Sorry, I tried to be very careful (added at 10:42, 19 January 2009 by U. kulick) As I look at this set of edits, frankly, I see a mess. Some things I know are wrong, others look very wrong. I'm sure that the edits were made in good faith, but equally sure that, taken as a whole, they detract from the article. I'm therefore reverting the lot. However, I encourage Rebollo_fr (or anyone else) to look among them for genuine improvements, and to incorporate these. -- Hoary 21:29, 18 January 2009 (EST) :I see the mess in the "neglected camera maker" which Rebollo_fr tried to circumscribe so complicated and my corrections are not the best what could be done to improve that. Therefore pardon, please. The series of bakelite cameras proves that there was one maker, and this one maker used the full-text identification mark "Olympic Camera Works" on his cameras, maybe a generic name according to the experience recorded carefully by Rebollo_fr in Camera Works. First I didn't consider, Rebollo_fr wrote me to do so and so I did. I think the mess resulting of all these considerations is the fact that all the doubts about the company name must be explained in detail in the page about that camera maker which obviously existed since it has been transformed later to a subsidiary of Riken. Rebollo_fr circumscribes that complicated, maybe considering the cameras were made in various home workplaces and the company name was a façade that hides assets spread to several households and workshops. That was no unusual production organization in former times. If a company really didn't exist and just a widespread lot of workplaces stood behind the generic company name this is the only under which we can identify that camera maker. Then it would be the very best to use the generic name of the company for the page about the maker until a real name of the company is found. Then we move it, so that the links stay valid as redirect. The worries about the company name belong IMHO not into every article about a single Olympic camera, but in this page here the explanation is right that Asahi Bussan might have stood behind that "camera works", not only as marketing partner, if such links were common. (added at 10:42, 19 January 2009 by U. kulick) ::Please, Uwe, you ask me to edit more carefully and I shall; for your part please read more carefully. ::First, I know that you read "Kaisha". I've dealt with that already. The difference between kaisha and gaisha is here trivial, which is a matter having to do with Japanese phonology. ::The address matter is very simple. What's now the (more or less) central part of Tokyo is divided into 23 ku, conventionally if misleadingly translated as "wards", fancying themselves as independent cities !, but actually what anglophones would call "boroughs" and Parisians would call arrondissements. The area that you are thinking of as Kyōbashi is now in Chūō-ku. Ginza is also in Chūō-ku. But Chūō-ku is a new name: At the time of Asahi Bussan, what's now Chūō-ku was Kyōbashi-ku and Nihonbashi-ku. Ginza was in the former. So although Ginza and Kyōbashi are now mutually exclusive, they were not so at that time. Incidentally, neither Ginza nor Kyōbashi is or was a street: this just is not how addresses work in Tokyo or most of Japan. And discovery of an address in roman lettering in which the ingredients are written in some unexpected order is highly unlikely to show anything of any importance. ::I don't mean to criticize you at all for not understanding historical Japanese addresses. But if you see some apparent contradiction in this kind of thing, please ask about it. Perhaps there really is a mistake; if so, Rebollo_fr or somebody will acknowledge it and fix it. But perhaps nothing at all is wrong (although a spot more explanation might help). ::Unfortunately I seem to be coming down with a cold right now and I don't have enough stamina to continue beyond addresses. I do understand that you have a real concern about Olympic Camera Works and also new evidence. Good, please discuss them here or in some other suitable talk page. English-language Wikipedia has a policy "Be bold"; it's well intended but it doesn't transfer well to this kind of article here, on whose talk pages your suggestions, questions and new evidence are of course welcome. ::Tell you what: I'll undertake to write up an explanation of addresses. But please don't hold your breath. -- Hoary 06:52, 19 January 2009 (EST) ::: Be bold is just what I did introducing the camera maker page of the "neglected camera maker" and this one about its distributor. It was Rebollo_fr who was so bold to open concurrent edit sessions, what made work much more complicated because of his way of complicated circumscription of the camera maker, facts he seems to know and that I tried to respect as it's my first rule not to be bold if there is already contents which must be respected, even if it was created by the respected expert in an edit war! So all the reverting you did was not a revision to a much better status of an old often reworked Rebollo_fr article, It was just another scene of that war which I want to bring to peace with my suggestion. Olympic Camera is IMHO for the moment appropriate name for an own camera maker article since literature gives three different name variants containing both words, Asahi Kōgaku Kōgyō is the only possible alternative - both companies should be covered in one article. The links or redirect to Ricoh behind these names are IMHO extremely worrying or even wrong. :::If We want to use the move function now Asahi Kōgaku Kōgyō would be the only appropriate name that we know at the moment, and then "Olympic Camera Works" would have to be mentioned as the possible or just pretended name for the predecessing manufacturing unit(s). I think this would be not too much assumption but a good information to write down in a readable uncomplicated style on that page. The texts about the Olympic bakelite cameras could be simplified by just giving the link to the page under the one or the other name instead of complicated circumscription of who made ... (added at circa 1 p.m., 19 January 2009 U. kulick) ::::When I saw your first edits, I thought that you were trying to make some summary of what was already in the Ricoh page, about Asahi Bussan and the so-called "Olympic Camera". This is because the edits were unsourced and added little information, except the connection to the "Asahi Field Camera". This is why I tried to stop your edits, sorry: I understood only after that you really found a new piece of information on the company. It would have been easier to tell this in the talk page first, and discuss the obscure points there. But in the past I made myself guilty of the same kind of bold moves. In any case, it is certainly not my intention to enter any "edit war", and I apologize if my behaviour could mislead you into thinking this. :::::Apology accepted U. Kulick 17:33, 19 January 2009 (EST) :::::I have to apologize too, some mistakes were in what I did, sorry U. Kulick 17:33, 19 January 2009 (EST) ::::The description that was in the Ricoh page was written some time ago, before I really understood the nature of the "Camera Works" names found in Japanese advertising. At the time, I was confident enough in what Arimura and other authors said on the early history of Ricoh, and I trusted their mention of "K.K. Olympic Camera" or "Olympic Camera Seisakusho". Now I disagree with them, and I think that the company was not called that way. ::::I certainly agree that the Olympic, Super Olympic and Semi Olympic were designed by the same manufacturer. As for the other cameras distributed by Asahi Bussan, the Semi-Adler was clearly bought from a separate company, and was surely a rebadged Semi Victor. For the Vest Olympic, I'm not convinced that it was made by the same as the other Olympic, because it was released earlier as the Vest Alex, and it has a different all-metal construction, requiring a very different manufacturing process. Its maker will perhaps remain unknown forever. (The Regal Olympic probably has the same origin.) ::::I think that a separate section on the camera's origin is needed for all the families of models, because their different release date makes their situation specific. The only sections which could be almost identical are those on the Olympic and Super Olympic, but the latter does not have any "The Olympic Camera Works" nameplate. The Semi Olympic was created just before the takeover by Riken, and this must be addressed specifically. ::::My belief today is that the bakelite models were made by Asahi Bussan itself, in a manufacturing facility set up specifically for bakelite cameras. I have no definitive evidence, but the following hints: ::::# The early shutters have an AB logo, clearly for Asahi Bussan. I have seen only two types of logos on Japanese cameras of the time: genuine manufacturer logos (such as Fujimoto's FT logo) and dummy/brand logos (such as the First logo on Kuribayashi cameras). I have yet to see a logo purely belonging to a distributor. Here I think that the AB logo is a manufacturer's logo. ::::# Riken took over the company Asahi Bussan and the manufacturing facility at the same time. This indicates that they were closely related. With the assets of Asahi Bussan (and the manufacturer), it made the company Asahi Kōgaku Kōgyō. The only camera released by that company after the merge was the Letix. That is yet another bakelite camera, whereas all the other cameras sold by Riken were made of metal, and presumably bought to various third-party manufacturers, until the release of the Gokoku and Ricohflex B. This is a hint that the manufacturing facility was targeted at the production of shutters (AB, then AKK) and bakelite cameras. The only camera with an AKK shutter and metal body is the Vest Olympic. I think the body of this one was bought elsewhere, and only the shutter was added by Asahi Bussan, then Asahi Kōgaku Kōgyō. ::::# The plate "The Olympic Camera Works" appears at a late time, on the Olympic C and Semi Olympic only. It appears continually after the merge, even on cameras with AKK logos, made after the creation of Asahi Kōgaku Kōgyō. I think its function is decorative only. ::::This is my current (informed) opinion on the matter. I cannot prove it with 100% certainty, but this is how I'll manage future edits. ::::--Rebollo fr 15:02, 19 January 2009 (EST) I am not convinced that the Vest Olympic comes from the same factory, because the camera was released as the Vest Alex earlier. I have reverted this edit of yours. Sensible: :The address of Asahi Bussan in late 1936 was Kyōbashi-ku Nishi Ginza 8–1. Sensible if you think somebody who doesn't understand Japanese addresses might look at an English source and think the address was mixed up: :The address of Asahi Bussan in late 1936 was Kyōbashi-ku Nishi Ginza 8–1. (The items in the bibliography below dated 1936 and 1937 give this address, though reordered for Western consumption.) Utterly pointless for anybody who understands Japanese addresses (let alone anyone who doesn't): :The address of Asahi Bussan in late 1936 was Kyōbashi-ku Nishi Ginza 8–1. (The items in the bibliography below dated 1936 and 1937 give this address, though reordered for Western consumption to "Ginza Nishi, 8-chome, Kyōbashi, Tokyo" or "No.1, 8 chome Nishiginza Kyobashi, Tokyo, Japan".) Or if there is some point, let's read what the point is, right here on this talk page. -- Hoary 10:21, 19 January 2009 (EST) Page reworked I have reworked the page, on the lines announced above. The main point is that the bakelite Olympic cameras were most probably manufactured by Asahi Bussan itself. If not, then they were made by some full subsidiary, whose name was surely not "Olympic Camera". (I'm adding another argument here to those already pointed above: if the "Olympic Camera" plate found on the cameras was a true company name, it would have disappeared or changed when the AB initials were replaced by AKK.) I consequently added the "camera maker" category to this page, and made a redirect from "Olympic Camera". I think that the page now sufficiently documents the original maker of the bakelite Olympic. The exchanges have been quite lively, but I think that the result is quite interesting. I personally find the current situation more satisfying than the previous one, when all the information was grouped in the main Ricoh page. U. Kulick's intervention was an incentive to make new connections, though in the future, the participants (including myself) should try to make more use of the talk pages. I'll rework the various pages on the Olympic models, to point to this page and remove the more obscure parts on "Olympic Camera". Then I have to adapt the main Ricoh page too, to clarify the corresponding section. I'm not completely sure of where the redirect from "Asahi Kōgaku Kōgyō" should point. It's unreasonable to create a full page for this transitory company (successor of Asahi Bussan and predecessor of Asahi Musen). The redirect could point to Ricoh, because it was formed after the takeover by Riken. Or it could point to Asahi Bussan, because its cameras were still recognizable as former products of the latter. I invite you to read the current page, and give your opinion. --Rebollo fr 19:07, 19 January 2009 (EST)